Donald Wittkowski

Ocean City will once again bring in a lobbying firm to help steer it through a regulatory morass as it begins the next phase of a multimillion-dollar dredging program to clear out its clogged lagoons and channels along the back bays.
Tonio Burgos and Associates of New Jersey LLC, a Trenton-based lobbying firm, will be paid $5,000 per month in 2017 under a contract scheduled to be awarded by City Council at its meeting Thursday. The contract is potentially worth up to $60,000, but the city has told Tonio Burgos that its services may not be required throughout the entire year.

Joyce Popwell has been mourning the deaths of her mother and brother in the past two years and dreaded the prospect of spending this Christmas alone.
The 72-year-old retired hotel executive lives by herself in an Ocean City condominium, but instead of celebrating the holiday in solitude, she decided to head over to St. Peter’s United Methodist Church for some company...

How would you feel if someone walked all over you?
Each year, Ocean City’s most popular man-made attraction must withstand the colossal weight of countless people walking, running and biking on it. The seashore’s whipping winds, salt water and beach sand also take a toll on the structure.
So, it comes as no surprise that the old wood planks of the iconic Boardwalk must be replaced with new timber from time to time to accommodate the huge flow of foot and bike traffic along the 2.5-mile oceanfront promenade...

Tucked behind a covered fence in a corner of Shelter Road is a mishmash of old TVs, trash cans, dumpsters, clothing bins, construction equipment and big piles of sand.
This out-of-the-way site off Tennessee Avenue now serves as Ocean City’s recycling complex and storage yard, but it could play a major role in the town’s multimillion-dollar dredging program for 2017...

City Council approved a construction contract Tuesday night to build the first permanent courts for Ocean City’s pickleball players, capping years of debate and searching for the right location.
The $593,700 contract, awarded to Command Company Inc. of Egg Harbor City, also includes improvements to the city’s tennis courts as part of a compromise agreement that created the spot for pickleball...

Over the years, there has been a lot of racket back and forth between Ocean City’s tennis players and pickleball players.
The tennis players wanted to protect their turf, while the pickleball players were eager to get their own permanent courts in town.

Ocean City’s school district is well managed and in strong financial shape, according to the results of an annual audit presented to the Board of Education on Wednesday night.
The audit came out “clean” and uncovered no negative findings, said Michael Garcia, a partner with Ford-Scott & Associates LLC, an Ocean City accounting firm that conducted the financial review for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2016.

An engineering consultant is proposing an alternative disposal site that would allow Ocean City to continue with its multimillion-dollar dredging program in 2017, but already there is resistance from surrounding homeowners.
Under the plan, muddy sediment that is dredged from the shallow lagoons would be piped to the proposed site on Shelter Road off Tennessee Avenue before it is hauled away by trucks for permanent disposal at other facilities off the island...

As a high school student vacationing in Ocean City in the early 1970s, Arlene Voudouris wandered through the Flanders Hotel one day and found herself marveling over the retail shops that were tucked inside the historic building.
“I remember standing at the door, saying to myself, ‘Who would be lucky enough to have these shops in such a beautiful, historic hotel?’” the 61-year-old Voudouris recalled of what was a watershed moment in her life...

Randy Kohr had eight very small and odd-looking assistants to help him teach a class of first-graders Friday at the Ocean City Primary School.
The squat robots at Kohr’s feet resembled four oversized billiards balls that had been patched together to create a bizarre prop for a sci-fi movie. They whirled around on the floor, flashed different colored lights and made funny sounds.

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In 1968, the Wiesenthal brothers, Don and Glenn, were beginning their more than a half century of auto repair and gasoline sales at 860 West Avenue – the highly visible corner of Ninth Street and West Avenue in Ocean City.
Although the brothers had hoped to continue to stay in business, their attempts to buy the building were unsuccessful, and they lost their lease. The building, at a site occupied by a gasoline station since 1935, Don Wiesenthal said, is slated for demolition.
The location will soon be the site of a bank and a parking lot.